Casita Chuparosa

I can not believe I last posted over a week ago, and promised some photos … and yet still have not delivered. My bad.

Also, last post noted that we paid 1/2 down — well we thought we had, anyhow. We deposited 25% in cash in the architect’s bank account, using a local bank. And we sent him a check for another 25% drawn on a Canadian personal checking account. We got an email from him — he couldn’t cash the Canadian check. Say what? Is Mexico a communist country, that doesn’t do business with Canada? No, Canada and Mexico are both part of NAFTA — how in the hell can you have free trade if they don’t honor checks from one another’s banks? It is absurd — like so much else in Mexico when trying to conduct any kind of business.

Anyhow, here are a few of the photos I promised. First, a close-up of the late bat resident. My wife called it a ‘vampiro’ or Vampire, but then she calls all bats that. Still, there are vampire bats in Mexico, and this guy was living alone — not typical behavior for the social bat species. On two of our earlier visits, we found a single bat (I’m presuming this same one) living in the cottage. This time, we didn’t see him — but we noticed a rotten-flesh type smell coming from near the couch. I moved the couch, and found this corpse.

There is some gray stuff at the nose — I think that is just dust … perhaps held together with cobweb. I have no idea if this is one of the many fruit bats that inhabit the area, or one of the insect-eating bats that are readily apparent every night in the sky after sunset — or maybe (unlikely) it is really a vampiro. In any case, we welcome bats on the property, but once the alterations are done, they will no longer be able to come inside the building.

When I moved the couch I found the dried-out remains of a lizard, similar to another specimen we noticed in the kitchen area. I’m not sure what these guys are called, but am told they eat scorpions and cockroaches. I have yet to see a cockroach  at Casita Chuparosa, and have only seen one dead and dessicated little scorpion — behind a picture frame. Again, after the alterations we have planned, neither of these pests are likely to find their way inside the cottage.

This lizard is clearly over 15 inches long with it’s tail — I’ve never seen one more than about five inches long — the live ones are rather shy. We hope we can get the native iguanas to take up residence on the property once our garden is sufficiently lush to attract them.

And finally (for today, at least), here is the kind of attraction that makes Cerro de Ortega and our little cottage Chupa Rosa so attractive: a hammock hung between two shady trees, for the rest and relaxation that makes a Mexican holiday so refreshing. My wife and I spent much of our time in this hammock during our last visit — and expect to spend many more hours there in days to come!

On February 27, 2008 we returned to Cerro de Ortega, intending to get things started. We arranged to talk with the architect in Tecoman the following day. We also talked to some local construction guys about building just the stone wall. Before leaving Chapala, we had talked with a builder/friend who estimated that a wall such as we described should cost $25,000 to $35,000 pesos, depending on details.

With the help of an iron-worker who would do the access doors, we contacted some builders who could make the wall. Their estimate, for a 2.5 meter high wall with one individual steel door entrance and one 3.5 meter wide driveway door came to an astounding $74,000 pesos. And their plan called for a cement covered brick wall, rather than stone, ‘because it is much less expensive’. We thanked them for their time and went to talk to the architect.

The architects original proposal was also more than we wanted to spend, so we discussed scaling back the project. We settled on a plan that adds just one room: the bathroom of course. The larger existing room is to be converted into a kitchen and living-space, open concept. The smaller room is to be the bedroom. The stone wall will be 2.5 meters high, and made of stone. The metal roof over the existing structure is to be replaced with a peaked cement roof.

The architect itemized the costs of each element in the project, and we went back to review those figures the next day. It was still a bit more than we were comfortable spending right now, so we looked at various options to lower the cost. He suggested leaving out the wall, which would reduce costs by $24,000 pesos (a far cry from the $74,000 wanted by local workers!) I wouldn’t budge on that essential item though. In the end we decided to leave the metal roof on the existing structure for now, and replace it with the peaked roof in a year or two, whenever we can afford it. The scaled-down project cost came to $124,353 pesos, or about $11,700 U.S. at current exchange rates.

As is customary, we paid half up-front, with the remainder to be paid as work progresses. Construction of the wall was to begin this week, but of course we are no longer there, so we won’t know how things are going until our next visit, or when the architect requests more funds, our having agreed that such requests will be accompanied by photos of the work completed to date.

The contract specifies that the project must be completed within one year, though he expects it to take much less than that — it will certainly be several months however. We hope to live there next winter, so if it takes until October it won’t really matter to us. If it goes beyond that we will have to change our plans — one learns to be flexible when living in Mexico. Under the terms of the contract, the agreed upon work will be completed at the agreed price — any loss of material due to theft, increases in material costs, etc., will be the architects expense.

Here is a rough plan of the current project. This started out as the architects original architectural drawing of the larger plan, which included expanding the entire structure to the front. I’ve added the wall in brown — it is wider than it should be if it were to scale, the stones will be 35 to 40 cm thick. I photoshopped the rest of the changes, so several things are not quite exact, but it gives the idea. There will be a utility area between the wall and the bedroom, which will allow access to the bathroom roof, where the gas tank, water tank and hot-water tanks will all be. That also allows for a window in the bedroom, where we plan to put a small air-conditioner. The big driveway doors will have a smaller door within them for individual access. Entrance to the house if from the back, into the living room. Big windows from the kitchen and bedroom face the garden in back.

In the next few days I’ll try to post some more ‘before’ images of the casita as it is now. I also have images of some of the deceased critters we found inside …